Prepare for another economic crash? #thrifty

It’s good to be thrifty and prepare for the worst. Remember the ‘credit crunch’ when food prices soared and petrol prices nearly hit 1.50 a litre? According to an economist at RBS (yes, the bank that messed up that we had to bail out) another stock market crash is coming in 2016.

Posh boys

What planet is this posh boy on? He says that the stock market will crash and lose 20% of its value. Last April the FTSE 100 was at 7100 and today it’s at 5857. It’s already crashed sunshine and we survived it. Well some people did, others are sleeping on the streets and it is not you posh boys.

Overpriced crap

We do need to be thrifty and not queue up to buy overpriced crap sold by multinationals at inflated prices. Then when the posh boys in the city of London really mess up or are fixing interest rates or selling dodgy PPI or whatever we have a cushion against the inevitable stupidity of the old Etonian and Oxbridge set.

Super six

They are all useful, you can make DIY Lemsip with the lemons, do baked potatoes with sausages which is a really frugal meal and make winter soups and stews with the others.

I did bangers and mash with white cabbage and onion gravy the other night. The sausages were 1.75 for 6 from Aldi and are gluten free. The whole meal only cost about a £1 to cook. You can’t buy a portion of chips for that these days.

Special buys

The special buys at Aldi today include lots of bedding and household products like drain cleaner and carpet cleaner. They have mops! I’ve been after a new mop for months. I was told they were in Poundland but haven’t been able to go. These are 3.99 but could be better quality. I hope they still have some when I go next week.

The special buys on Sunday include lots of weather-proof clothing for anglers. There is a Scottish flavour to the rest of the special buys with delicacies such as haggis and Robbie Burns blonde beer on offer.

Matalan

Matalan still has their in-store sale on. It’s a good time to buy a winter coat because they haven’t sold well this winter with the milder weather so they have been on offer more. If you want one that’s more formal then try Debenhams.

Crash ?

So is the economy going to crash again? I think it is likely that the stock market has either hit bottom or will soon and so for investors who have cash it’s time to at least think about buying. The RBS analyst thought there would be a 20% drop. Lloyds share were at 85p last April and a 20% drop would skim 17p off the top making them 68p. The price today? They are at 66.47 but the government has been dribbling its shares into the market for a while. I sold mine at 80p (bought at 28p)! The oil price is low and could go lower and so petrol prices will stay low for a while. There is no sign of QE on the horizon so the pound should be stable for a while. I think we could see a rise in VAT in April and maybe a rise in the tax on petrol.

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